Brownfields redevelopment has been encouraged by governments or the real estate market because of economic, social and environmental benefits. However, uncertainties in contaminated land redevelopment may cause massive investment risk and need to be managed so that contaminated land redevelopment is facilitated. This study was designed to address hydrogeological as well as economic uncertainty in a hypothetical contaminated land redevelopment project and manage the risk from these uncertainties through the integration of the hydrogeological and economic uncertainties. Hydrogeological uncertainty is derived from incomplete site information, including aquifer heterogeneity, and must be assessed with scientific expertise, given the short history of redevelopment projects and their unique hydrogeological characteristics. Hydrogeological uncertainty has not yet been incorporated in one framework with the economic uncertainty that has been relatively well observed in financial markets. Two cases of Non-Aqueous Phase Liquid (NAPL) contamination were simulated using a physically-based hydrogeological model to address hydrogeological uncertainty: one concerns the effect of an ethanol spill on a light NAPL (LNAPL) contaminated area in the vadose zone, and the other is regarding the vapour phase intrusion of volatile organic compounds, in particular, Trichloroethylene (TCE), a dense NAPL (DNAPL), into indoor air through a variably saturated heterogeneous aquifer. The first simulation replicated experimental observations in the laboratory, such as the capillary fringe depressing and the NAPL pool remobilizing and collecting in a reduced area exhibiting higher saturations than observed prior to an ethanol injection. However, the data gap, in particular, on the chemical properties between the model and the experiment caused the uncertainty in the model simulation. The second NAPL simulation has been performed based on a hypothetical scenario where new dwellings in a redeveloped area have the potential risk of vapour phase intrusion from a subsurface source into indoor air because remediation or foundation design might fail. The simulation results indicated that the aquifer heterogeneity seemed the most significant factor controlling the indoor air exposure risk from a TCE source in the saturated zone. Then, the exposure risk was quantified using Monte Carlo simulations with 50 statistically equivalent heterogeneous aquifer permeability fields. The quantified risk (probability) represents the hydrogeological uncertainty in the scenario and gives the information on loss occurrence intensity of redevelopment failure. Probability of failure (or loss occurrence intensity) was integrated with cost of failure (or loss magnitude) to evaluate the risk capital in the hypothetical brownfields redevelopment project. The term “risk capital” is adopted from financial literature and is the capital you can lose from high risk investment. Cost of failure involves economic uncertainty and can be defined based on a developer’s financial agreement with new dwellers to prevent litigation in the case of certain events, such as an environmental event where indoor air concentrations of pollutants exceed regulatory limits during periodic inspections. The developer makes such a financial agreement with new dwellers because new dwellings have been constructed founded on flawed site information, and municipalities may require it if a land use planning approval is required. An agreement was presumed that the developer would repurchase the affected houses from new dwellers immediately, if indoor air contamination exceeded the regulatory limit. Furthermore, the developer would remediate any remaining contamination, demolish the affected houses and build new houses if they were worth investing in. With this financial plan assumed, the stochastic housing price, stochastic inflation rate and stochastic interest rate have been considered to cause the uncertainty in the cost of failure, and the information on these stochastic variables was obtained from the financial market due to its long history of observations. This research reviewed appropriate risk capital valuation methods for hydrogeologists to apply straightforwardly to their projects, with integrating probability of failure (hydrogeological uncertainty) and cost of failure (economic uncertainty). The risk capital is essentially the probability of failure times the cost of failure with safety loading added to compensate investors against hydrogeological and financial uncertainty. Fair market prices of risk capital have been valuated using financial mathematics and actuarial premium calculations, and each method has a specific safety loading term to reflect investors’ level of risk aversion. Risk capital results indicated that the price of the risk capital was much more sensitive to hydrogeological uncertainty than financial uncertainty. Developers can manage the risk capital by saving a contingency fee for future events or paying an insurance premium, given that the price of this risk capital is the price of a contingent claim, subsequent to failure in remediation or in foundation design, and equivalent to an environmental insurance premium if there is an insurance company to indemnify the liability for the developer. The optimal framework of investment strategy in brownfields redevelopment can be built by linkage of addressing and integrating uncertainties and valuating risk capital from the uncertainties. This framework involves balancing the costs associated with each step while maximizing a net profit from land redevelopment. The optimal investment strategy, such as if or when to remediate or redevelop and to what degree, is given when the future price of the land minus time and material costs as well as the contingency fee or insurance premium maximizes a net profit.

Brownfields redevelopment has been encouraged by governments or the real estate market because of economic, social and environmental benefits. However, uncertainties in contaminated land redevelopment may cause massive investment risk and need to be managed so that contaminated land redevelopment is facilitated. This study was designed to address hydrogeological as well as economic uncertainty in a hypothetical contaminated land redevelopment project and manage the risk from these uncertainties through the integration of the hydrogeological and economic uncertainties. Hydrogeological uncertainty is derived from incomplete site information, including aquifer heterogeneity, and must be assessed with scientific expertise, given the short history of redevelopment projects and their unique hydrogeological characteristics. Hydrogeological uncertainty has not yet been incorporated in one framework with the economic uncertainty that has been relatively well observed in financial markets. Two cases of Non-Aqueous Phase Liquid (NAPL) contamination were simulated using a physically-based hydrogeological model to address hydrogeological uncertainty: one concerns the effect of an ethanol spill on a light NAPL (LNAPL) contaminated area in the vadose zone, and the other is regarding the vapour phase intrusion of volatile organic compounds, in particular, Trichloroethylene (TCE), a dense NAPL (DNAPL), into indoor air through a variably saturated heterogeneous aquifer. The first simulation replicated experimental observations in the laboratory, such as the capillary fringe depressing and the NAPL pool remobilizing and collecting in a reduced area exhibiting higher saturations than observed prior to an ethanol injection. However, the data gap, in particular, on the chemical properties between the model and the experiment caused the uncertainty in the model simulation. The second NAPL simulation has been performed based on a hypothetical scenario where new dwellings in a redeveloped area have the potential risk of vapour phase intrusion from a subsurface source into indoor air because remediation or foundation design might fail. The simulation results indicated that the aquifer heterogeneity seemed the most significant factor controlling the indoor air exposure risk from a TCE source in the saturated zone. Then, the exposure risk was quantified using Monte Carlo simulations with 50 statistically equivalent heterogeneous aquifer permeability fields. The quantified risk (probability) represents the hydrogeological uncertainty in the scenario and gives the information on loss occurrence intensity of redevelopment failure. Probability of failure (or loss occurrence intensity) was integrated with cost of failure (or loss magnitude) to evaluate the risk capital in the hypothetical brownfields redevelopment project. The term “risk capital” is adopted from financial literature and is the capital you can lose from high risk investment. Cost of failure involves economic uncertainty and can be defined based on a developer’s financial agreement with new dwellers to prevent litigation in the case of certain events, such as an environmental event where indoor air concentrations of pollutants exceed regulatory limits during periodic inspections. The developer makes such a financial agreement with new dwellers because new dwellings have been constructed founded on flawed site information, and municipalities may require it if a land use planning approval is required. An agreement was presumed that the developer would repurchase the affected houses from new dwellers immediately, if indoor air contamination exceeded the regulatory limit. Furthermore, the developer would remediate any remaining contamination, demolish the affected houses and build new houses if they were worth investing in. With this financial plan assumed, the stochastic housing price, stochastic inflation rate and stochastic interest rate have been considered to cause the uncertainty in the cost of failure, and the information on these stochastic variables was obtained from the financial market due to its long history of observations. This research reviewed appropriate risk capital valuation methods for hydrogeologists to apply straightforwardly to their projects, with integrating probability of failure (hydrogeological uncertainty) and cost of failure (economic uncertainty). The risk capital is essentially the probability of failure times the cost of failure with safety loading added to compensate investors against hydrogeological and financial uncertainty. Fair market prices of risk capital have been valuated using financial mathematics and actuarial premium calculations, and each method has a specific safety loading term to reflect investors’ level of risk aversion. Risk capital results indicated that the price of the risk capital was much more sensitive to hydrogeological uncertainty than financial uncertainty. Developers can manage the risk capital by saving a contingency fee for future events or paying an insurance premium, given that the price of this risk capital is the price of a contingent claim, subsequent to failure in remediation or in foundation design, and equivalent to an environmental insurance premium if there is an insurance company to indemnify the liability for the developer. The optimal framework of investment strategy in brownfields redevelopment can be built by linkage of addressing and integrating uncertainties and valuating risk capital from the uncertainties. This framework involves balancing the costs associated with each step while maximizing a net profit from land redevelopment. The optimal investment strategy, such as if or when to remediate or redevelop and to what degree, is given when the future price of the land minus time and material costs as well as the contingency fee or insurance premium maximizes a net profit.

There are three types of agreements regarding lawyers’ fee: fixed fee, hourly fee and the contingent fee. Contingent fee agreements have distinguishing features from other types of fee – lawyer is compensated or his remuneration is paid only if the case is won, and the client doesn’t have to pay a fee beforehand. Agreements are most popular in United States. Europe doesn’t use them uniformly, some countries allow agreements, some – prohibit. Lithuania a few years ago adopted rule allowing contingent fee agreements but still there are no further legislation or clarification. Mainly contingent fee agreements are used when there is no risk of non-recovery. The main advantage making agreements desirable that client doesn’t have to pay till the case is closed. This model allows people who cannot afford hourly or fixed fee get access to justice. On the other hand lawyer on a contingency fee agreement has more motivation to do everything what is needed to obtain judgment. Contingent fee agreements can be divided in several types: hourly contingency fee, when the lawyer is paid for total hours spent on the case only if the case was successful; then, when the lawyer is paid an hourly rate and bonus premium, based upon litigation; and mostly known type is based upon percentage of the plaintiff’s recovery. The main aim of this research is to validate or disclaim the hypothesis that contingent fee agreements violate ethical principles governing lawyers’ practice. First part of this... [to full text] / Pacta de quota litis terminas daugiausiai naudojamas Europoje; minimas Europos Sąjungos advokatų profesinės etikos kodekse. Kitos šalys naudoja skirtingus terminus, populiariausias contingent fee, naudojamas Jungtinėse Amerikos Valstijose, taip pat conditional fee Didžiojoje Britanijoje. Contingent fee terminas Lietuvoje naudojamas kaip sąlyginis atlyginimas, dėl kurio advokatas ir klientas susitaria iš anksto. Tai viena iš susitarimo tarp advokato ir kliento rūšių, kuri apibrėžia ne tik kliento atstovavimo sąlygas, bet kartu ir numato advokato atlyginimą, kuris tiesiogiai priklauso nuo bylos baigties. Taip pat yra žinomi valandinio užmokesčio ar fiksuoto užmokesčio susitarimai. Sąlyginio atlyginimo susitarimai gali nustatyti atlyginimo dydį valandine išraiška, kai sąlyginis atlyginimas skaičiuojamas nuo išdirbtų valandų; taip pat gali būti mokamas valandinis sąlyginis atlyginimas su premija ir populiariausias, kai sąlyginis atlyginimas nustatomas procentine išraiška ir skaičiuojamas nuo priteistos sumos. Sąlyginio atlyginimo susitarimai labiausiai paplitę Jungtinėse Amerikos Valstijose, tuo tarpu Europoje jie naudojami labai retai, daugelyje šalių jie draudžiami. Šių susitarimų išskirtinumas yra tas, kad klientui nereikia mokėti už advokato paslaugas iš anksto. Su advokatu atsiskaitoma tik jei byla laimima. Tai lemia šių susitarimų populiarumą ne tik Jungtinėse Amerikos Valstijose, bet ir kitose šalyse, nes sudaro galimybe nepasiturintiems asmenims apginti savo teises ir... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]

In third-party litigation funding agreements, funders agree to finance a litigant’s litigation on condition that the funder will deduct a specified percentage from the capital awarded to the litigant in the event of success. In contingency fee agreements, such funding is provided by lawyers. Initially both these agreements were illegal in South Africa and England, but as civil courts became able to counter corruption and abuse – and with the recognition of the need to give more litigants access to justice – both were recognised as legal. Third-party litigation funding agreements by non-lawyers are unregulated in most jurisdictions. As the voluntary self-regulation in England is unsatisfactory, mandatory statutory regulation should be introduced in South Africa. The Contingency Fees Act 66 of 1997 caps the fee to 25% on the capital amount in South Africa. Since no such cap exists in Ontario (Canada), the cap of 25% in South Africa should be revised. / Eka Mintwanano yo nyika nseketelo wa mali eka nandzu wa thedi phati, vanyiki va mali va pfumela ku hakela mali ya nandzu wa mumangali hi xipimelo xa leswaku munyiki wa mali u ta susa phesenteji leyi kombisiweke ku suka eka mali leyi nyikiweke mumangali loko a humelela. Eka mintwanano ya tihakelo ta vukorhokeri, nseketelo walowo wa mali wu nyikiwa hi maloyara. Ekusunguleni mintwanano leyi hinkwayo a yi nga ri enawini eAfrika Dzonga na le England, kambe tanihi leswi tikhoto ta mfumo ti koteke ku kokela etlhelo eka timhaka ta vukungundzwana na nxaniso- na ku anakanyiwa ka xilaveko xo nyika vamangali votala mfikelelo wa vululami- hinkwayo yi anakanyiwile tanihi leyi nga enawini. Mintwanano yo nyika nseketelo wa mali eka nandzu wa thedi phati hi vanhu lava nga riki maloyara a yi lawuriwi eka vuavanyisi byotala. Tanihileswi vutilawuri byo tinyiketa eEngland byi nga riki kahle, mafambiselo ya nawu lama lavekaka ya fanele ya tivisiwa eAfrika Dzonga. Nawu wa Tihakelo ta Vukorhokeri wa 66 wa 1997 wu veka mpimo wa hakelo eka 25% eka xiphemu xa tsengo wa mali eAfrika Dzonga. Ku sukela loko ku ri hava mpimo lowu nga kona eOntario (Canada), mpimo wa 25% eAfrika Dzonga wu fanele wu langutisiwa hi vuntshwa. / Kha thendelano dza ndambedzo dza mbilo ine ya itelwa muthu, vhabadeli vho tenda u badela mbilo ya muthu o no khou itelwa mbilo tenda mubadeli a tshi ḓo ṱusa phesenthe yo tiwaho kha tshelede yo avhelwaho muthu ane a khou itelwa mbilo arali a kunda. Kha thendelano dza mbadelo dzine dza badelwa musi ramilayo o no kunda kha mulandu, mbadelo idzo dzi ṋetshedzwa nga vhoramilayo. Mathomoni thendelano idzi vhuvhili hadzo dzo vha dzi siho mulayoni Afurika Tshipembe na England, fhedzi musi khothe dza mbilo dzi tshi vho thoma u hanedzana na tshanḓanguvhoni na u tambudzwa - na u dzhiela nṱha ṱhoḓea ya u ṋea vhathu vhane vha khou itelwa mbilo u swikelela vhulamukanyi –vhuvhili hadzo dzo dzhiwa sa dzi re mulayoni. Thendelano dza ndambedzo dza mbilo ine muthu a itelwa nga vhathu vhane vha sa vhe vhoramilayo a i langulwi kha vhulamukanyi vhunzhi. Samusi u langulwa ha ndaulo nga iwe muṋe hu ha u tou funa ngei England a zwi ṱanganedzwi, ndaulo ya khombekhombe ya mulayo i fanela u ḓivhadzwa Afurika Tshipembe. Mulayo wa Mbadelo dzine dza badelwa Ramilayo musi o kunda wa nomboro 66 wa 1997 mutengo wawo u guma kha 25% mutengo wa tshelede Afurika Tshipembe. Samusi tshikalo itsho tshi sa wanali ngei Ontario (Canada), tshikalo itsho tsha 25% Afurika Tshipembe tshi fanela u sedzuluswa hafhu. / Private Law / LL. M.